A screech owl’s shivery call. It’s too dark at first to see the shimmer of snow in the air, but as sunrise approaches one can begin to distinguish white streaks, like a head of hair just beginning to go gray.
screech owl
Light rain as the sky grows light. Two screech owls call back and forth, trill answering quaver, just as the Carolina wrens do a few minutes later.
Thick fog. A screech owl trills, seemingly in answer to the wren. Then crows join the chat. The owl’s trilling pauses, then resumes a quarter mile away.
Clear and cold. The sun pops up—the pea in our daylight-savings shell game. A screech owl begins to trill.
Heavily overcast at sunrise, signaled only by an upsurge in birdsong from dozens of white-throated sparrows, the Carolina wren, and a screech owl quavering in the pines.
Canada geese, a screech owl, some crows, and the inevitable wren sing in the sunrise, the western ridge turning red under a flat-tire moon.
An hour before sunrise, in the silence before weekend traffic begins, a barred owl’s “Who cooks for you all?” followed by a screech owl’s trill. Half an hour later, the soft notes of a migrant thrush.
Clear and cold at dawn. The nearly full moon gutters among the trees. A screech owl trills with a rising intonation, which feels like some kind of omen.
Clear and still at sunrise, with a sheen of dew on the meadow. A screech owl trills in the distance, nearly drowned out by goldfinches.
Heavily overcast. A vole briefly surfaces in the yard, all dark fur and blur. A screech owl trills on the ridgetop where the sun should be.
Snow flurries at dawn, the ground more light than dark. A screech owl trills softly up on the ridge as the phone warms my pocket, installing an update.
A slightly flat full moon in the west at dawn. A towhee calls from the dark edge of the woods. Freight trains labor up the valley. Just before full daylight, a screech owl begins to trill.
Another large oak has de-leafed, leaving more room for the overcast sky and its patchwork of light and dark. A screech owl trills one last time before full day.
A screech owl trilling just before sunrise sets the small birds off. The forsythia at the woods’ edge is once again yellow. The clouds turn red.